Games are played at casinos at various places in the world by dealers playing dice and trumps and operating lottery machines such as roulettes and by players predicting pips on dice, combinations of trumps, and winning pockets in roulettes, bidding, for example, chips on a betting board, and earning dividends according to the lottery results.
With the advances in electronics and communications technology in recent years, game machine systems in which computer devices serve in place of the dealers and perform the lottery operation conventionally performed by the dealers have been being marketed.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) Publication No. 2009-189802, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) Publication No. 2009-189803, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) Publication No. 2012-165920 disclose game devices configured so that they can play SICBO, which is a popular dice game at casinos in Asian locations such as Macao (PTL 1 to PTL 3). SICBO originally is a game in which a dealer throws three dice and a player predicts the total number of pips appearing on the dice and a combination of the pips, bets on patterns and numbers on a betting table (by betting chips or the like on the predicted content), and earns dividends according to the number of pips on the dice. The betting table is provided with, for example, an area for making bets by predicting the number of pips appearing on the dice (for example, a combination of two dice from among the three dice [Combination]), an area for making bets by predicting the total number on the dice (for example, the total number on the three dice [Total]), and further an area for making bets by predicting whether the total number of pips on the three dice is “Big” or “Small” (for example, “Big” (11 to 17) or “Small” (4 to 10) [Big or Small]). The dealer throws the three dice and the player makes a bet while the dealer covers the dice with a cover; and after the dealer declares betting closed (for example, by declaring “No more bet”), the dealer opens the cover and reveals the pips on each dice, thereby determining a win or loss.
The game devices described in PTL 1 and PTL 2 mentioned above are configured so that a plurality of stations 4 are placed at a housing 2 formed so as to surround a game unit 3, in which dice 7 are operated, and each of a plurality of players is seated at each station 4 and can play the SICBO game. Each station 4 is designed so that images of the betting board are displayed on an image display device 7 with a touch panel attached to its front face and the player can perform betting operations as in conventional cases by operating the touch panel (PTL 1: FIG. 2 and FIG. 6; and PTL 2: FIG. 2 and FIG. 6).
A game machine described in PTL 3 is designed so that the stations 4 are placed so as to surround a SICBO device 3 where dice 27 are operated; and each station 4 accepts bets as the player performs touch operations on a touch panel 56 attached to a front face of a display 8 (PTL 3: FIG. 1, FIG. 3, and FIG. 6).
Meanwhile, the above-mentioned PTL 1 to PTL 3 do not clearly describe whether to display a betting table on which the player's own betting status is reflected, or display a betting table on which the betting status of other stations is also included and reflected, on the display for each station.
When only the player's own betting status is displayed at each station, it is very obvious the betting amount the player themselves has bet on which betting position; however, that player cannot tell betting positions and betting amounts at other stations.
Since the amount of dividends at a specific betting position changes according to how much other stations are betting on that specific betting position, the player needs to know the betting status of other stations in order to predict the expected amount of dividends at the specific betting position.
On the other hand, when the betting status of all the stations including other stations is displayed, the betting status is displayed in the same manner as the conventional game in which a plurality of players make bets on one betting board at the same time, so that it is easy to comprehend the entire betting status, but it is difficult for the player to comprehend the betting amount the player themselves has bet on which betting position.
Particularly, with a system of a huge game machine in which lottery results of one lottery apparatus are shared by many stations, as the number of bets from each station becomes larger in the middle and last half of a betting period, it becomes impossible to comprehend the player's own betting status.
So, an object of the present disclosure is to provide a game environment where the operation status of the player's own station machine can be easily monitored and operated and the operation status of other station machines can be also easily monitored.